Start the week with a film: ‘The Order’ is a gripping film about America’s white militia problem

Australian director Justin Kurzel’s eclectic filmography includes a version of Macbeth, the video game adaptation Assassin’s Creed and True History of the Kelly Gang, based on the Peter Carey novel of the same name. Kurzel’s latest film The Order is based on actual events that took place in the 1980s in America but resonate into the present.

The 2024 film, which is out on Prime Video, is based on The Silent Brotherhood: The Chilling Inside Story of America’s Violent, Anti-Government Militia Movement by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt. The movie is chilling too in its examination of a white supremacist militia’s mission to “free the homeland” from its perceived enemies through violence.

In 1983, Federal Bureau of Investigation official Terry Husk (Jude Law) moves to Idaho. A veteran of operations against the Ku Klux Klan and the Mafia, Husk hopes to have an easy posting. When a series of attacks on porn establishments, synagogues and banks takes place, Husk’s past experience proves useful.

Local police officer Jamie (Tye Sheridan) draws Husk’s attention to the local chapter of the extremist organisation Aryan Nations. One of Jamie’s friends, an Aryan Nations member who blurted out information about an upcoming attack, has been missing for a few weeks.

The trail leads to Aryan Nations breakaway member Bob Mathews (Nicholas Hoult)….

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